‘The Rite’ Is No. l Film in Theaters With $15 Million in Sales

The horror film “The Rite” opened
in first place at U.S. and Canadian theaters, taking in $15
million for Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Bros.

The action film “The Mechanic” tied for third in its
debut, generating $11.5 million in sales, researcher
Hollywood.com Box-Office said yesterday in an e-mailed
statement.

Sales for the top 12 films fell for the 12th straight
weekend as box offices in 2011 compete against last year’s
“Avatar,” the top-grossing movie of all time. The James Cameron 3-D movie was No. 1 in its seventh week a year ago,
grossing $31.3 million for the weekend of Jan. 29-31, 2010.

“Until the long shadow of ‘Avatar’ wanes or lessens its
impact on our year-ago comparisons, we’re going to be looking at
down weekends,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of
Hollywood.com’s box-office division.

This year’s domestic box-office sales total $871.7 million,
down 23.9 percent from a year earlier. Attendance is off 25.1
percent. Box-office revenue this weekend was $93.2 million, down
from $109.8 million a year earlier, according to Hollywood.com.

“Eventually, we will get our way out of this,”
Dergarabedian said. “But we’re going to have a lot of ground to
make up by the time these big movies start kicking in.”

Potential blockbusters include “Thor,” “Pirates of the
Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” the Justin Bieber documentary
“Never Say Never” and another “Transformers” sequel, he
said.

‘No Strings Attached’

“The Rite,” starring Anthony Hopkins as a priest
specializing in exorcism, is among at least 11 horror films
studios plan to release this year, according to Hollywood.com.
The genre is one of the most reliable because of their low
production costs and popularity with teenagers.

“The Rite” is based on Matt Baglio’s non-fiction book
about an American priest who goes to the Vatican for exorcism
training. In the film, Hopkins’s character is assigned to teach
a skeptical seminary student to perform the ceremony. The older
man’s behavior turns sinister after he is unable to cast a
powerful demon out of a young woman.

“The Mechanic” tied with “The Green Hornet,” both of
which had $11.5 million in sales. “The Mechanic” stars Jason Statham as an assassin who takes on an apprentice played by Ben Foster. The movie, from CBS Corp.’s CBS Films, is a remake of
the 1972 film starring Charles Bronson and Jan-Michael Vincent.

Sony Corp.’s “The Green Hornet” dropped from second. The
film, based on the 1930s radio program and comic books, stars
Seth Rogen as a wealthy newspaper heir who secretly fights
crime.

Weinstein Co.’s “The King’s Speech,” was fifth with $11.1
million. The film, which stars Colin Firth as King George VI of England, expanded to 2,557 locations from 1,680 after securing
12 Oscar nominations on Jan. 25. The movie chronicles the
monarch’s struggle to overcome a speech impediment.

The amounts below are based on actual ticket sales for Jan.
28-29 and estimates for yesterday.